GUJAR KHAN: Defending remarks he made in the Senate earlier this week, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan reiterated on Saturday that he believed there should be separate laws for organisations that are proscribed on the basis of terrorist links and those banned on a sectarian basis.

The minister had caused uproar in the upper house on Tuesday when he tried to distinguish between the two different types of banned organisations.

“On one side are clear-cut terrorist organisations; there is no space for them in Pakistan. Their office-bearers or anyone linked to them are either eliminated in encounters, imprisoned or manage to flee across the border. But organisations that are proscribed on sectarian grounds, whose office-bearers have no cases against them, they are still in Pakistan,” the minister told reporters after a public meeting in Kallar Syedan.

“It is unfair to link everything to Maulana Ludhiyanvi,” he said, referring to criticism of his meeting with the head of the banned Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ).

PPP condemns remarks; TNFJ says minister harmed its reputation by suggesting it was proscribed

“Those suggesting that I uttered something sacrilegious by saying terrorist organisations and those organisations that were proscribed on the basis of sectarian differences are different have not examined the record,” he said, referring to the list of proscribed organisations compiled by the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta).

“Can Allama Sajid Naqvi be linked to any terrorist organisation? Can [Syed Hamid Ali Shah] Moosavi be linked to a terrorist organisation? No, they are patriotic Pakistanis. But their organisations have been proscribed on a sectarian basis.”

“We will need to make separate laws for these two types of organisations. This is necessary to remove confusions regarding who-is-meeting-whom. I ask which Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader hasn’t met leaders of proscribed organisations in his time?”

When asked about the disappearance of five civil society activists in the past week, he said efforts were being made to recover the missing men and ensure their return to their families.

He said that in Islamabad, a missing persons report had been filed only over Prof Salman Haider’s disappearance, while the other FIRs were filed in Lahore. He said that incidents of disappearances took time to be resolved, adding that he was personally monitoring the issue.

Talking about the military courts, he said that a fast-track mechanism was needed to ensure that condemned terrorists should meet their deserved end. He said the fate of the military courts would become clear in a few days.

While commenting on the Quetta commission, he said that that matter would be taken up by the apex court on Jan 19, and a report would be submitted there on Jan 18. He said that a detailed report on the achievements of the interior ministry during his stint of ministry would be submitted.

Reaction

The PPP — whose criticism the interior minister was responding to — reacted swiftly to Chaudhry Nisar’s statement, with Senator Saeed Ghani calling the interior minister “a spokesman [for] terrorist outfits”.

“Chaudhry Nisar is annoyed with the PPP because [we] oppose terrorists and will continue to resist [such] organisations,” a statement released on Saturday said.

The federal and Punjab governments were not serious about implementing the National Action Plan (NAP) and were avoiding taking action against terrorist outfits in Punjab and Chaudhry Nisar was the biggest hurdle in the implementation of NAP, the senator concluded.

The Tehreek-i-Nafaz-i-Fiqh-i-Jafriya (TNFJ), of which Agha Syed Hamid Ali Shah Moosavi is the patron-in-chief, also issued a rebuttal, saying that neither the TNFJ, nor any of its attached organisations were among banned outfits.

A statement, quoting Mr Moosavi’s remarks before an emergency meeting of the TNFJ core committee, said: “It does not suit the federal interior minister to defend those who carry out terrorism in the garb of sectarian groups”, adding that the minister had “caused damage to our reputation”.

“The interior minister should have studied the Nacta list... why blame media or anchorpersons when the interior minister himself is unaware of banned organisations,” the statement said.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2017